Books to Read: Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston + a simplified history of World War II

This isn't a book that I would usually read, but I'm glad I did.

This book is a memoir about a girl named Jeanne who gets sent to an internment camp with her family. For those of you who don't know about World War II and Japanese internment, I'll give you a brief and dumbed-down and overly simplified history lesson that basically will only help you understand Japanese internment:

Germany: Man, this stinks. We just got beat in World War I, and now we have nothing.
Hitler: Hey, we're a force to be reckoned with. We're gonna build some war equipment and an army.
Germany: But we're not allowed to build an army. Remember?
Hitler: Who cares? Like I said: we're a force to be reckoned with.
Germany: Okay. We'll start building an army.

Random country that's not Germany: Hey, Germany is building war equipment. They're not supposed to do that.
Other random country that's not Germany: It's okay. It seems to be helping their economy, so maybe they'll just leave it at that. In the meantime, we should deal with our own economic problems and not build any war equipment whatsoever.

Germany: Okay. We got an army.
Hitler: Good. Let's go invade some countries and send people who aren't as pure and superior as us to concentration camps to ultimately die.
Germany: Um . . . okay.

Japan: Hey! Thanks for being friends with us, Germany!
Germany: No prob.
Japan: Yeah. Anyway, we're going to go to Pearl Harbor. See you later.

Japan: Yup. There's Pearl Harbor. Okay. Drop the bombs.
United States: WOAH. Hey, Japan, what's with that?
*silence*
United States: Oh, okay. We see how it is. We're going to open up factories and create more war equipment than you will ever see in one hundred years. Just watch.
Franklin Roosevelt: While we're doing that, I'll sign Executive Order 9066 and give the military some more authority.
United States Military: Cool. Now, obviously, the Japanese are a major threat to our society and we can't do anything to them without violating the constitution, but who cares? We'll send all of the Japanese to internment camps and hold them there for a few years and make sure that they're not all secretly spies.

*a few years later*

United States: Hey, Japan--we just dropped a bomb on you and we kind of don't want to do another. Do you surrender?
Japan: No.
United States: Okay. We just dropped another bomb. Do you surrender?
Japan: Okay.
United States: Okay. Germany has already surrendered, so . . . I guess the war is over. We can let the Japanese out of the camps now.

*the end*

Anyway, people in the media started saying "THE JAPANESE ARE ALL SPIES!!!!" and for some reason, people believed it. So, the Japanese were sent to internment camps. They were NOT at all like concentration camps. Not very many people died in internment camps. However, the camps themselves were hastily built and the conditions were terrible, and it was undeserved, so even though it was not as brutal as the concentration camps in Germany, it was still terrible.

I really recommend this book if you're interested in World War II. I enjoyed it and I'm glad that I read the book.

Now, let's talk about the book a little bit.

• I learned a lot. Anyone who knows me knows that I like to learn when I read for pleasure. This book explained the conditions of life at the interment camp Manzanar with great detail. (There was a whole chapter about the latrines.) It was like the author was looking at a photograph and writing what she saw.
• This book was really, really well written. I was expecting very boring writing because most memoirs only tell the story, but this story was told with style. There were some fantastic metaphors and similes that really enhanced the story, beautiful imagery, and everything was organized well. There were chapters from different perspectives and vivid words, and I was surprised that someone who was simply writing a memoir actually took the time to not just tell the story, but craft the story.
• Everything about the book felt very sincere. This book is a memoir, and the author wrote it to tell people about her story. But the author included some very powerful personal thoughts and feelings that I really appreciated while I was reading.
• The author did embellish some things: a lot of the conversations and her dad's interview. However, the author embellished to highlight certain points--to show that the Japanese really were citizens, for instance. It just added to the book and my understanding of the situation.
• The book tells you about something that doesn't get quite enough attention. I didn't learn much about Japanese Internment, and this book gave me all of the information I needed about it.

All in all, I recommend this book to anyone 12 and over. I'm recommending that you read it at that age because by then, you've at least started to learn about WWII in school and you'll understand it better. The book also explores subjects like abuse, alcoholism, racism (of course), and other forms of judgment that I think you would really notice and understand at that age. So, go read it.